Bill Cosby, Himself

His humor regarding raising his children is especially entertaining.


Cosby comes alive on stage and screen   February 25, 2004
andy8047 (Nokomis,Florida)
Silly Bill Cosby comes alive on stage in Ontario,Canada and on movie screens almost everywhere. The opening theme song is entitled IT WAS A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME. First,Cosby talks about drugs. Normally,he's no trashmouth but he does mention once and only once the vulgar slang word for "anus","rectum","idiot" and "jerk". Then he talks about dentistry,the subject that opens the soundtrack album which is entitled THE DENTIST. "Dentists tell you not to pick your teeth with any sharp metal object.",he tells his audience. Then,there's what's entitled on the album,NATURAL CHILDBIRTH. Cosby tells about pregnancy,the joyous aftermath and what his wife Camille went through when she was pregnant with the Cosbys' first child. "You just had a lizard!",Bill tells Camille after the birth. The audience breaks into uproarious laughter. Then there's Cosby's definition of BRAIN DAMAGE,which is disobedience and immediate forgetfulness. A child is told by an adult not to do something then when the adult turns his/her back and turns it around again,the child is caught violating. The adult asks the child,"If you were told not to do it,then why did you do it?" The child answers,"I don't know!" That subject is carried over into what's entitled KILL THE BOY. The boy is Cosby's now-deceased son Ennis. Bill comes home from a tennis game and Camille tells him,"I want you to go upstairs and kill that boy!". Bill tells Ennis,"Your mother sent me here to kill you!" What motivated this? Ennis gave himself a haircut. Bill asked Ennis,"What happened to your hair?". Ennis said "I don't know!". Then Bill asks,"Was your head with you all day today?". Ennis said "Ah-hah!". Then Bill asks,"Did you cut your hair off?". Ennis replies,"Ah-hah!". "Why didn't you tell me that then?". Ennis replied,"I don't know!". Another funny moment in the Cosby household was when Camille wanted Bill to cook breakfast for the couple's five children. Bill reluctantly complied with Camille's order after being threatened with a shotgun and a bucket of ice water. So he proceeds with a frying pan and,as he tells in an angry tone,the damn bacon,sausage and the("you have to be careful with")eggs. The Cosbys' youngest child,then-age 4,spotted chocolate cake. She asked her father if she could have some of the cake. The other four children decide to have the same thing after seeing the 4-year-old eating it. That relieved Bill from the duty of cooking. They were all happy eating the cake and listening to music until an angry Camille came along and shouted,"WHERE DID YOU GET CHOCOLATE CAKE FROM?". Bill replied,"THEY ASKED FOR IT!". One of the children then said,"We asked for eggs and milk and Dad made us eat this!". Bill then tells about the nightly routine in the Cosby household entitled SAME THING HAPPENS EVERY NIGHT. After dinner Camille tells the children,"Go upstairs,take off all your clothes,get into the shower,use the soap and shampoo,rinse yourselves off,dry yourselves off,get into your pajamas and go to sleep. Now if you do as I say,there will be no beatings!" However,there's a scuffle between Ennis and his two younger siblings. The youngest one feared she'd be blinded for life because shampoo has run from her hair into her eyes. This scenario has been re-enacted in the premiere episode of NBC's "The Cosby Show" in 1984. Angry Camille then grabs a yardstick and according to Bill,"holds it like a Samaurai warrior". Camille announces,"THE BEATINGS WILL NOW BEGIN!". Then Bill talks about grandparenthood,entitled THE GRANDPARENTS. Bill of course is referring to his mom and dad and Camille's mom and dad. Bill's mother was an authority on pigsties. All she had to do was find a shoe lying upside down in a room and to her that room was the filthiest she had ever seen,according to Bill. Bill's dad would fart and shift the blame to "invisible animals". The soundtrack album is on the Motown label. A must for all Bill Cosby fans.


The modern king of comedy at his funniest   February 1, 2004
Daniel Jolley (Shelby, North Carolina USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I still have vivid memories of being a kid and hearing Bill Cosby do his The Dentist sketch on a show called Solid Gold. It was easily the funniest thing I had ever heard in my life, and I went around telling everyone just how hilarious Bill Cosby was. At the time, I only knew Cosby from his Picture Pages segments on Captain Kangaroo and the Fat Albert cartoons, and I actually felt like some type of visionary when a little television vehicle called The Cosby Show debuted soon thereafter based to a large degree on the comedy you will find on both the album and video of Bill Cosby, Himself. A few of the skits in this performance were translated almost directly to the screen in the show's first few episodes.

The Bill Cosby, Himself video is hilarious; I still laugh every time I watch it, no matter how many times I've heard the routines. There was a time when I practically had The Dentist memorized, but I still love to hear it (and I felt privileged indeed to hear that story told again on the occasion I had to see Cosby perform live some years after this video came out). Cosby's humor resonates so well with audiences because he is describing and joking about things we all know and understand to some degree. He doesn't need to use foul language or tell dirty jokes in order to reach his audience. He comes in, sits in a plain old chair in front of the live audience at Toronto's Hamilton Place Performing Arts Center, and just starts talking about the humorous things in life. The audience feels as if Cosby is one of them, and the connection between audience and comic is immediate and powerful.

The comic material on Bill Cosby, Himself, deals primarily with family life - marriage, children, etc. He makes the birth of his first child a hilarious journey into the delivery room, explains that parents age and lose a lot of their intellect because of the brain damage that characterizes all of their children, explains how differently his parents treat his own children compared to the way they treated him, offers a wonderful illustration of the talent fathers have of getting out of doing things, and describes quite vividly some of the antics of his own five children over the years. He also describes the typical weekend activities of people who go out drinking and questions just how hangovers and nausea can be considered essential parts of "having a good time."

Bill Cosby knows people, and he knows what will make them laugh; he is also one of the greatest storytellers in the world. He is at his funniest on this video, and I really can't imagine there is anyone out there who would not enjoy watching Bill Cosby, Himself. This is comedy at its very best.


wonderfully funny!   January 29, 2004
This is so funny! If you have kids, it will really tickle your funny bones because his description of family life is right on. We have a neighbor, a dear lady and wonderful mother, who has ten children that laughed so hard she had tears in her eyes when she watched the video. He has the ability to make humor out of every day circumstances, that to some wouldn't be so funny and he does it in a good clean manner. The truly best comedians don't need to use sex and foul language to make people laugh. He is in a category of his own. I highly recommend the video. Enjoy!